Mapping Coastal Flood Risk Lags Behind Sea Level Rise
Federal maps help determine who on the coast must buy flood insurance, but many don't include the latest data. Maryland is now making its own flood maps, so homeowners can see if they're at risk.
Sea levels are rising and climate scientists blame global warming. They predict that higher seas will cause more coastal flooding through this century and beyond, even in places that have normally been high and dry.
But mapping where future floods will strike has barely begun.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency maps where people are at moderate or high risk of flooding. Most people with property in hazardous areas — where the annual risk of a flood is one in a hundred or more — are required by law to buy federal flood insurance from FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program.
But FEMA's insurance maps are based on patterns of flooding. Future sea level rise — which is expected to
